Long ago I started a WordPress account, where I wrote this entry. Deciding to keep the eggs in this basket I am pasting it here. It's a bit outdated now, but there you go.
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ROOMinations
Mega best-seller ROOM and Friday – a retelling of Robinson Crusoe  (kind of)
By a strange coincidence, I had just finished reading a translation of Michel Tournier’s 1967 novel Friday when I picked up Emma Donohue’s best-selling page-turner ROOM. Friday is a psychologically intense saga that rewrites Robinson Crusoe, and an undeniably peculiar novel to consider in juxtaposition with ROOM. Daniel Defoe’s 1719 Robinson Crusoe, is the inspiration for many many creative works connecting to the idea of isolation, creative use of limiting parameters, the human spirit, colonization, captivity, and on and on. Many adaptations of the novel range from sublime to ridiculous, including an 1867 operetta, four films, several TV series, and two islands (Chile and Fiji). And don’t forget Swiss Family Robinson and Gilligan’s Island. In literature, there are other numerous riffs on the story, none of which can comfortably be connected to the heartrending story told in ROOM.


ROOM is a tale of terrible incarceration, where a young woman is kidnapped, confined to a shed, and routinely raped by “Old Nick” a deviant loner, to whom she bears two children, one stillborn and the second a little boy named Jack. He is turning five at the start of the novel, written mostly in his own words. You think it’s going to be a grim read, but in fact, it is an account from a child’s eyes with his own interpretations of the only world he knows, the eleven-foot square interior of the shed. Friday, in many ways a grim read, also functions as a story about a man (Crusoe) trying to turn his deserted island environment into a facsimile of the world that he once knew.
Both narratives are delivered largely in the first person, Jack’s voice, and Crusoe’s journal. The first half of Friday tells of Crusoe’s strategies after being shipwrecked, and like Jack’s mother, the strategies for maintaining a sense of civilization and sanity in the face a  great desire to descend into a mire of despondence. There are structured routines for maintaining physical and mental endurance but both occasionally fall into depression. Crusoe actually does wallow in a mucky swamp, a physical “slough of despond”, while Jack’s mother “goes away” – staying in bed and not speaking. During these times Jack does his best to look after himself.


For Crusoe, the arrival of Friday changes little initially. He treats him as a servant, his slave, in the manner of western custom of the day, and one who must be civilized. It is only through Friday’s accidental destruction of Crusoe’s built environment does the dynamic alter, and Crusoe comes to appreciate Friday’s contributions to their lives and to allow his colonial preconceptions to fall away.


In both situations rescue does finally come, but the nature of the captivity and indeed the overriding themes in the two books diverge dramatically. Jack’s brave adventure (or ”scrave” as he and his mother describe being both brave and scared) is too exciting a read to give away here. For Crusoe and Friday a ship appears, its occupants are shown in all of their cruel materialistic and offensive natures. Crusoe has bonded with his natural state; the island has become his lover and nurturer. He doesn’t like the visitors’ heavy food, their smells, and the way the lower ranks are treated.


Out of ROOM and back to the outside world, mother and son have many adjustments to make. There is great joy among family members but also many awkward moments. An interviewer asks whether the Stockholm syndrome came in to play during their captivity. This suggestion incites the mother’s fury, as does the idea that Old Nick was abusive to the boy. She adamantly rejects both suggestions and makes the point that she had never allowed Jack to be seen by their captor.


Both stories deal with issues of adjustment when the protagonists are back within civilization. ROOM offers a child’s view of his enlarged world and there are interesting insights here. They are taken care of by family, social services, and the implication is that they will be healthy and socialized after a period of time. In Friday Crusoe has become a different creature. There is an equally positive outcome to the story. If you aren’t going to read the book I can email it to you.


Reading these two stories in succession has created interesting thought processes about civilization, nature, and the way we tell stories.  Friday delivers critical gravitas but ROOM is a great read with some charming insights imparted through the character of dear little Jack.


While there are narrative arcs that pull a reader through the stories, of more interest to me is that as readers we have endless fascination with the reconfiguring of existence within the possible. For each protagonist, choices are made within a narrow range. Jack and his mother choose to risk all for one chance at escape when they are faced with a cruel alternative: Old Nick might turn off their power supply, an action that would lead to slow death. Friday and Crusoe also make choices in terms of their relationships with a natural world versus so-called civilization. Tournier’s refiguring of the Defoe tale throws the whole concept of rescue into question, while the popular novel ROOM delivers a certain level of confidence that the protagonists will happily adjust to their newly expanded horizons.

You can’t always know what things mean to people. 

As the director of the Mill, a small art centre in a small town, I'm working away at my desk. It’s a quiet afternoon, with wind rattling the windows, and whistling into my old office. A cab pulls up and I see that it is dropping off Hilda, one of our volunteers.

Hilda is a small elderly women who speaks in jerky half sentences. A bit hunched over with arthritis, and missing a few teeth, she is, regardless, a huge help at our openings, looking after the kitchen goodies and keeping the cider hot. Someone will always give her a ride home, along with the leftover treats. There’s one eye that can look askance, and a hairnet tucked around her bun. She lives with her brother in a little house at the end of a laneway. There is no phone, but when we want to ask her for help we call a neighbour, who passes on the message. And Hilda shows up. She will sometimes take a painting class, filling in if the numbers are low. Or paying for it too. She is a fixture at the Mill. We learn later that she is also the oldest member at the bowling alley around the corner.

None of us have ever met the brother, but my precursor suggested some level of abuse, saying “I don’t want to know.”

So we only know Hilda as a loyal volunteer and a member of our little art community. She has come by to inquire about a letter she received from the provincial government congratulating her on her many years as a volunteer. We relied heavily on our volunteer help so no opportunity was ignored to pass out honours. There was a ten-year pin.

She explained that she couldn’t make it to the ceremony. She wasn’t feeling well and was on her way to see the doctor. Then she told me some kind of murky story about her mother and “not wanting to start that again!” A backroom, a mother, and something unsavoury, but again, Hilda’s conversation was hard to follow.

“I’m going up to the bank, so I’ll drop you at your doctor’s,” I offered.

And that was the last time I saw Hilda.

We didn’t know that she had died until we heard from her lawyer. He and his wife had had to clean out her house and handle her estate. Her place was hoarder-full and she had been on a cot in her back porch. Food was only a bit of kibble.

She left half of what she had to the Mill and the other half to her church. It was our largest donation to date.

Later, spooky people claimed to be seeing Hilda at the Mill, but I never did.
 

There was a parade in Kirkland Lake. Maybe I was five or six, and possibly it was the Santa Claus Parade. But since I was terrified of Santa, that enormous gruff guy with his huge white beard, and those evil green elves that urged little kids to come closer, Santa was not who I considered as a celebrity. He was more of a boogeyman.
No indeed. This one came along much earlier in the procession. He was big too, and he bobbed along, nodding and waving to the crowd, and, I thought, especially to me. His giant head took over most of his body and you could just see little legs holding him up. His helpers threw out little treat packets.
It was none other than, The One, The Only, MR PEANUT!
From that sighting I became a lifelong fan of Mr. Peanut. Sadly, these days, he has been unfriended throughout the universe because of his association with nut allergies.
Cancelled. ☹

Who was your first?

It came to pass that Oshawa's outdoor pool would, as in other years, close after Labour Day. Except for one special event, where the pool would stay open and lifeguards engaged just one more day for a doggie swim.
Kids would be in school, and we would all be moving forward into fall activities.
However.
This particular first day of school was a hot humid ninety degree heat wave, where kids might love to have one more swim on this shortest of school days.
Parents and dog lovers were pitted against each other in a most public Facebook outcry. Hundreds weighed in. The anonymous parent who first raised the issue was praised, excoriated, called a Karen, and congratulated for speaking up.
Comments flew back and forth, with the main points repeated with increasing levels of ire.
Arguments against the doggie swim included:
            Kids should come first
            People were suffering in the heat
            An exception could be made
Arguments for the doggie swim included:
            The pool was reserved
            Dogs like to get cool too.
But
The very, very best comment came from an irate and apparently knowledgeable pet owner with inside scoop on the inner workings of the canine brain. The person said, "the dogs look forward to it."
Seriously.
The dogs were apparently looking forward to September 5 for their swim at the pool.
The dogs
Looking forward.

Mown grass
(but lawns are bad for the environment)

Campfires 
(dangerous and bad for air quality)

Steak on the barbecue
​(that too)

​JEESH!

​A brilliant inventive pianist, teacher and composer, she is credited with inventing the idea of music concerts. (Rolling Stones be grateful). Through her performances she supported her family.

A prodigy trained by her parents and predominantly her father, she made her first public appearance when she was nine. Her talent captured the eye of Robert Schumann who applied to study with her father, and lived with the family for a year.

Eventually a romance developed between Robert and Clara, despite Robert being nine years older. They  married in 1840 after a contentious court battle with Clara's father, Friedrich Wieck. Together the couple collaborated on their music, as their family grew. 

She had eight children.

Her husband Robert suffered a mental breakdown and spent the last two years of his life in an asylum. Accounts either say that Clara didn’t visit him or that she wasn’t allowed by the doctors to visit him. Syphilis was suggested, or maybe manic depression, or maybe schizophrenia.

Accounts either describe Clara touring  Europe in order to support her large family, or mean and neglectful Clara handing off her motherhood role to her oldest daughter and servants.

And then there’s Brahms (1833-97) who sought out Robert and asked to study with him. He and Clara were thrilled with this talented young man, who soon became a dear family friend. There's an account of him balancing on a stair rail to entertain the kids.

When Robert became ill Brahms was an enormous help to Clara.

Actually he loved Clara at least as much if not more than he loved Robert.

Over the years they travelled together, wrote each other constantly, and at one point went away to Switzerland to talk about marrying, but they never did. Brahms died a year after Clara.
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So, Clara – for talent, tirelessness, loyalty, and holy smoke – eight children!

I have had this dustmop since 1966. Or maybe even before that. It has a sturdy red wooden handle and a shaped wire piece at the end. The knotted string part fits around the metal and closes with a little zipper. Once in a long while I will put this red thing that looks like a clown wig into the wash. Afterward I have to wipe out all that red fuzz. So it too is half a century old. But it still works.

I thought it might be time to think about a replacement. My broom closet has one of those flat modern ones where you buy wet or dry pieces of some kind of synthetic fabric to attach. Then you throw them away after use. Eponymously, my closet also has a broom. It is not the kind one might see in a charming painting, the old-fashioned broom made from tied straw. What witches drive. Deep within my jumble of cleaning tools is a duster shaped like a lozenge, specifically for squeezing between shutters. It flops around uselessly and I should really throw it away.

Broom is named for the straw that old-fashioned brooms were made from. There’s a place in Vancouver that makes them by hand for a very big price. They will look fetching leaning beside a country kitchen door. You wouldn’t want to sweep with them, I am guessing.

My broom has no broom in it. My broom is all synthetic as far as I can tell. The handle is plastic with a leopard print on it. The broom part is made from thin black plastic straw-like pieces with slightly fuzzy ends. It works OK I guess but I have to use an old-fashioned straw whisk to sweep the pile into the dustpan. The plastic broom doesn’t want to let go of its treasures.

Hardware stores and dollar stores, where one purchases these cleaning products, seem to favour the modern versions. Nobody carries dust mop heads that fit my old mop. I thought that they must now be merely vintage items for eBay. So the highlight of my internet surfing this week has been the discovery of a company called Grainger that actually carries guess what?

Immediately I dial the 1888 number and get a call centre out there somewhere. A disembodied yet friendly voice asks me for the item number and how many I want. She is probably thinking that I am a company with a team of cleaners.

“One,” I reply. “Oh, I  might as well get two while I’m at it.” I don’t know why I said that since my original mop head still works, and really, how much mopping will I do? But two it is.

“They'll call when your order is ready for pickup. You need to bring your license or some other official identification.”

The following morning I find myself in an industrial plaza where this supplier is located. It’s a world of wonders that I couldn’t have imagined. There are tools worth thousands of dollars, magical things that can do magical tasks. There are batteries worth a fortune, plus small ordinary items. I present my licence and my name and an employee goes into a back room and retrieves my packages, but I can’t just walk away. I have to wait for it to be rung in. The man in front of me is spending way too long deliberating over which knife he should buy, but finally I get to pay for my selection.

“My mop is from 1966,” I tell the clerk proudly. He expresses the amazement that I expect, and the amazement that I feel in finding these mop heads for my ancient device.

I can’t wait to get home and mop.

My new one is a little thinner and has no zipper. Plus it’s yellow.
This is already a very exciting day, and now it gets even better when I get to dust away all the corners, the spider webs at the ceiling, the underparts of furniture, some blinds and window sashes. And – throw it in the wash, admiring all of the dirt that has adhered to my yellow mop head.
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Thereby illustrating the adage that small things amuse small minds.
Hee hee.

​With threats to our bodies, our psyches, the stability of the democratic politic, what can individuals do?

The pandemic isolations have created exciting transformations along with inherent anxiety. We relearned home skills- cooking, culturing yogurt, baking bread, board games, puzzles. And new ones such as zoom visits and online classes for all kinds of things. 

But that was in March and April. 

The long summer and its racial indignities, massive street protests, violent but ultimately impotent conflicts, have deadened those early optimisms. An unruly American election looms. Reopened schools are haunted by the virus. Wave after wave of outrageous rhetoric drowns reasonable discourse. 

Homemade pizza? How nice. 

​In a Shakespearean tragedy there is often a comedic subplot that mirrors the drama. Brazil and Bolsonaro is the subplot toTrump and the U.S. except it’s not funny and it doesn't relieve the direst of implications.
The Brazilian leader's back to work agenda in the face of state and municipal urging towards quarantine sounds very familiar. The latest order declares hair dressers as essential workers. Well, maybe that's not a good example (kidding).
Brazil's death toll from Covid-19 is second to that in the U.S. at 800 per day.
Bolsonaro has a revolving door of health ministers, the latest  being Nelson Teich who lasted less than a month.
endorsement of hydroxychloroquine,to the extent that he ordered the armed forces pharmaceutical laboratory to mass produce the drug.
Like Trump, he is also known for his appointments to family and friends and engaging in obstruction of justice tactics to protect corrupt practices. And there’s an obstruction of justice inquiry that is before the Supreme Court in Brazil.
 
My source for Bolsonaro info: https://www.nytimes.com/by/ernesto-londono with Manuela Andreoni and Letícia Casado contributed reporting.